Tell your Senators - Defend Ginsburg's Supreme Court Seat
Senator Dianne Feinstein
SF Office: (415) 393-0707
DC Office: (202) 224-3841
LA Office: (310) 914-7300
Fresno Office: (559) 485-7430
San Diego Office: (619) 231-9712
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Senator Kamala Harris
SF Office: (415) 981-9369
DC Office: (202) 224-3553
Sacramento Office: (916) 448-2787
LA Office: (213) 894-5000
San Diego Office: (619) 239-3884
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Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
I urge the Senator to do everything in her power to prevent Trump from filling Justice Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat!
Justice Ginsburg’s dying wish was to not be replaced by a Trump appointee. So much is at stake with this nomination: the election, Roe vs Wade, healthcare, environment, corporate power, and LGBTQ rights, to name a few. I know that the odds are against us, but some fights are worth fighting because decency, democracy, and human rights require that they be fought regardless of the outcome. Doing everything possible to block Trump/Republicans from ramming through the confirmation of a right-wing fanatic is one of those battles.
I want the Senator to use every power, method, and tactic at her disposal to keep her seat open until after inauguration day in January. Including, as necessary and appropriate, hardball tactics such as refusing Unanimous Consent, Quorum Calls, Rule XIV actions, and fast-track statutes like the War Powers Act, Congressional Review Act, and Arms Export Control Act to slow down their judicial railroad by forcing them to conduct other business.
If Republicans do ram through another ultra-conservative Supreme Court justice to give the extreme right a 5 justice majority, I want the Senator’s commitment to balance the Court in the next Congress by increasing its size to match the number of federal circuit courts as was done in the past.
Background
Trump and his Republican cronies are pushing for a quick confirmation so they will have a right-wing court to ensure partisan rulings in their favor over every election issue and challenge that arises in the November 3 balloting.
Moreover, the confirmation of Judge Amy Barrett to the SCOTUS will immediately impact the pending legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, due to be heard in court November 10 2020, one week after election. No major initiative of the Trump era has been more unpopular than his party’s 2017 attempt to repeal Obamacare. Recent polls have shown that only a third of the public supports ending the law, while a majority favors either expanding or maintaining it. And opposition to repealing the ACA’s Medicaid expansion or protections for those with preexisting conditions is even more overwhelming.
If Barrett’s views become law, hundreds of millions of Americans living with pre-existing conditions would lose access to their health care. In the middle of a pandemic, rushing confirmation of an extreme jurist who will decimate health care is unconscionable.
Furthermore, a clear majority of voters believes the winner of the presidential election should fill the Supreme Court seat left open by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. According to a national poll conducted by The New York Times, 56 percent said they preferred to have the election act as a sort of referendum on the vacancy; only 41 percent said they wanted Mr. Trump to choose a justice before November.
We must do everything we can to build a political groundswell to slow-down the rush to confirmation and convince four Republican senators to delay confirmation until the people have had their say and the new Senate (and hopefully new President) are installed in office.
These are going to be hard fights. The odds are against us. But we've won against long odds before, and we can do so again. If we don't prevent the right-wing SCOTUS takeover, we should demand that the new Congress increase the number of justices on our Supreme Court to balance its perspectives. This increase can escape characterization as “court-packing” by tying it to the past-practice of matching the number of Justices to the number of federal circuit courts (there are now 12 circuit courts).
Important dates:
Phase 1:
Today-Oct 9: Senate in session. Can vote to confirm. (McConnell could extend the Oct 9 date).
Nov 3: The end of the general election. All eligible votes must be cast by this date.
Some time later: Over the course of days or weeks, counties will count ballots and states will certify election winners. We’ll know who the popular-vote winner is for the Presidency, and who have won the Senate and House races. There will be many legal challenges and lawsuits.
Phase 2:
Nov 9-Dec 18: Senate in session. Can vote to confirm. (McConnell could extend the Dec18 date).
Dec 19-Jan 2: If the Senate has not confirmed his nominee, Trump could make a temporary "recess" appointment to SCOTUS once the Senate goes into recess. (He might also try to do that in the period Oct 10-Nov 8, but that is considered extremely unlikely). Whether such a recess appointee could vote on election-challenge cases is unclear.
Phase 3:
Jan. 3: The new Congress is sworn in. If Trump's nominee has not yet been confirmed the new Senate has authority to confirm or reject.
Jan. 20: The (hopefully 46th) President is sworn in.
The first phase runs from now until November 9. If we don't prevent a confirmation in this period, the right-wing 6-3 majority on SCOTUS will decide election challenges.
The second phase is the "Lame Duck" session where senators who were not re-elected still have the power to vote to confirm a SCOTUS justice. A new justice confirmed in this period might still be able to vote on election-related issues.
The third phase runs from the start of the new Congress (Jan. 3) until the inauguration (Jan. 20). If Trump has been voted out, the new Congress must continue to hold the seat open until Biden has been sworn in and can appoint Justice Ginsburg’s successor.
At the moment, Trump is pushing for a first-phase confirmation because he desperately wants a 6-3 majority on the court to rule in his favor on all election challenges. But some at-risk Republican senators (and some party strategists) don't want to be forced into taking a politically-risky vote before Nov 3. As of now, at least two GOP senators (Murkowski and Collins) have called for delaying a confirmation vote until "after the election." But "after the election" leaves open the possibility of confirming a right-wing justice during the Lame Duck session when voters can no longer punish a candidate. But it also leaves open the (long-shot) possibility that lame-duck senators with no political future might vote their conscience without fear of party-retribution.